


Hold his hand

by Satanders



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Feelings, Internalized Homophobia, Kid Richie Tozier, M/M, One Shot, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Teen Angst, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satanders/pseuds/Satanders
Summary: I want to take his hand.It is fugitive as thought, and yet Richie receives it as a slap. He turns away, even if it means getting Stan’s attention when Eddie has noticed nothing, too involved in his monologue about fungal infestations. His hand is right next to his and he has the impression that it radiates heat so he discards it, because suddenly he realizes that he could do something stupid.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Hold his hand

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Prendre sa main](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24779701) by [Satanders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satanders/pseuds/Satanders). 



> English is not my native langage blah blah blah, sorry for the epic mistakes, blah blah blah, will you notice my foreshadowing ?

_I want to take his hand._

It is fugitive as thought, and yet Richie receives it as a slap. He turns away, even if it means getting Stan’s attention when Eddie has noticed nothing, too involved in his monologue about fungal infestations. His hand is right next to his and he has the impression that it radiates heat so he discards it, because suddenly he realizes that he could do something stupid.

Ben is very polite and nods, encouraging Eddie to continue, so Eddie is not more attentive when Richie comes out of the hammock – even though it was his original goal, the one that led him to talk about mushroom growth, To which Ben had softly replied that he had taken basic precautions when he had built the clubhouse. But obviously it wasn’t enough for Eddie.

"Where are you going?" Stan asks.

"Pee, do you want to come and see what a real dong looks like?" Richie said, grabbing the ladder.

For a minute, he’s afraid Stan’s gonna say yes. He fears that he notice his look of worship on Eddie, the burning glow of his cheeks when he became aware of the path of his own thoughts.

"No, thank you, I’ve seen enough horrors for a lifetime," Stanley answers.

It's hardly if Richie can contain his relief. He's close friend with Stan, but he also imagines without difficulty his reaction.

If Richie told him how he felt, he could make him swear to keep it a secret, and Stanley would never betray a promise, because he was the kind of person he was. Richie knew that he could trust him with his eyes closed. Stan would rather die than break a promise to a friend.

But he would change his behavior. Because it was weird, slightly disgusting and a little scary to be friend with Richie knowing what he was hiding in him. What he really was.

It disgusts Richie too. A little.

Not enough, however, for him to stop remembering how close he was to touch Eddie, and he moved away from the clubhouse hatch to try to escape the memory, but the goosebumps covered his arms. He had touched Eddie in the past, but it was before he could imagine how it would be to take his face in his hands, to stroke his cheek with his thumb. To kiss his mouth tenderly, very gently, like a cloud caress on his lips, then to start again with a little more bravery, more like marshmallow, then slide his hand into his hair too smooth and too well styled to taste the texture with his fingertips.

It’s not the kind of thought you feed for a friend and Richie knows it. Part of him feels legitimate in what he feels, because he didn’t choose. It was born in him like that, because Eddie is funny, and so unpredictable and crazy, with his stories of viruses, fungus and deadly injuries, and with his way of responding to Richie with even bigger rudeness under his quiet and wise look. Because there’s a fury in Eddie that Richie thinks he is the only one to pop up, that it has a little magical side, like a secret, and because Eddie knows Richie by heart, that they like the same comics, and because even their fights end up making him laugh.

How could he not love him ?

And then another part of him is ashamed, because it’s disrespectful to Eddie to want more than their friendship, to want to drag him into this while Richie knows full well that Eddie’s mother had to repeat to him a hundred times how deviant those kinds of feelings were.

He doesn’t know what Eddie thinks about that himself and doesn’t want to ask. Already because it would be weird, because it’s not the kind of subject he could easily address, and because if Eddie reacted badly, Richie wouldn’t know how not to get hurt.

He stops and kneels on the loose soil. He curls up in a ball and hugs in his own arms imagining it’s Eddie. That he took his hand and that Eddie understood what it meant. That he felt the same way.

Richie knows he’s lucky. He has precious friends, friends who are good people, who would risk their lives for him – and they have nothing to prove to each other.

However, there is this hollow that no one can fill in his heart, and it’s a void that he would like Eddie to fill, because he feels it could work, he feels it’s what he needs, but he’s unattainable, and he can’t talk to him about this, he can’t ruin everything and betray Eddie.

Eddie trusts him because he thinks Richie loves him as a friend, and if he reveals to him it’s a lie, that he has impure thoughts about him, it could ruin everything, everything.

But he’s ruined anyway, ruined by what eats him from the inside, ruined because his parents talk about moving out and he doesn’t want to, because that would mean leaving everything he knows, the Aladdin, his friends, Stan. Eddie.

He’d like to talk to him about it. Except their relationship isn’t like that. Eddie is brave and strong, he would tell Richie to be brave but Richie doesn’t know how to be brave, he just knows how to act.

It’s more something he could entrust to Stan. But if he does, he’s gonna want to cry, and he doesn’t want Stan to see his tears. He would like it to be Eddie, he would like it to have his arms around him that hug him, and he would promise to wait for him, because nothing will break what they feel for each other. It is engraved in wood. Engraved in stone. In marble.

He shivers because he has managed to convince himself. Then the fantasy falls back and he gets up, rubs his skin to chase the goosebumps.

His excitement passes. His sadness too. He is ready to play the clown again.

Everything’s gonna be fine. It’s a phase. Soon it will be great and all that, all that internal storm that shakes him today, will be only a distant memory. He will become normal and boring, he will forget what it was like to be in love with another boy, to be ashamed of his looks too excessive, and he will be famous and appreciated.

That’s what he says to himself by climbing down the ladder.

He will be famous. And loved.


End file.
